Christie’s First Art + Tech Summit

Christie’s inaugurated its Art+Tech Summit at its London headquarters on July 18. The now-annual initiative, hosted in collaboration with Christie’s Education, aimed to explore the intersection of technology and the art world, specifically blockchain technology, following the cryptocurrency spike in price in 2018. The inaugural conference’s topic was “Exploring Blockchain – Is the Art World Ready for Consensus?” and featured thought leaders like Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jason Bailey. Infamously, Christie’s gave away 300 Robbie Barrat NFTs of “generated nude #7” on physical cards in a gift bag to attendees, placed in the bags by SuperRare in collaboration with Bailey and Barrat. Perhaps expecting greater blockchain literacy, the reception of the tokens was disappointing, as according to SuperRare’s John Crain, “We were genuinely excited about the idea, only to find out the next day that literally no one understood what the tokenized card was for.” With SuperRare reporting only 12 of the 300 ever claimed, the remaining pieces today are known as the “Lost Robbies” and—against the initial desires or interest of the artist—sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. One is featured in the Le Random collection.